The invention relates to an apparatus for receiving, conveying and depositing articles, especially cartons, with a liftable and lowerable and transversely movable gripper for grasping at least one article (carton) with upright carrying arms which during transport of an article (carton) extend on both sides of said article, and with carrying legs pivotably attached to the carrying arms, said carrying legs being movable into a horizontally directed carrying position and an essentially vertically directed release position by means of upright actuating means (actuating webs).
The invention is concerned with a subject of the transporting art, specifically with handling cuboidal articles, especially relatively large cartons. These cartons are delivered for example on a feed conveyor (belt or roller conveyor) and are transferred for example onto a pallet or another conveyor. Mainly palletizers, also known as robots, are used for this purpose. A gripper attached to the end of an articulated arm serve s for grasping the article (cartons). The articulate d arm itself is rotatably and liftably mounted on a support column. Such a palletizer is for example disclosed in DE-A-37 20 933.
The invention is particularly concerned with the structure of a gripper for a conveying apparatus of this or of a different kind. The known grippers comprising suction means for grasping the articles a t the top side can quite often not be employed, for example if the cartons are open at the top and contain individual articles. In these cases, the articles have to be grasped at the bottom side by mechanical carrying means.